We've been saying it for years, but it seems that NJ citizens just won't wake up.  These three articles all cite the cost of living as a central theme to explain the exodus of taxpayers from NJ to other states.  But what's troubling is that not a one of them addresses the constant violation of our liberties.  Oh, no.  That'd be politically incorrect, of course, to criticze the liberals and their philosophies.

“Politicians in New Jersey have treated their citizens as ATMs,” said one taxpayer interviewed.  The article continues:

 "But today Jersey is a cautionary example of how to cripple a thriving state. Increasingly muscular public-sector unions have won billions in outlandish benefits and wages from compliant officeholders. A powerful public education cartel has driven school spending skyward, making Jersey among the nation’s biggest education spenders, even as student achievement lags. Inept, often corrupt, politicians have squandered yet more billions wrung from suburban taxpayers, supposedly to uplift the poor in the state’s troubled cities, which have nevertheless continued to crumble despite the record spending. To fund this extravagance, the state has relentlessly raised taxes on both residents and businesses, while localities have jacked up property taxes furiously. Jersey’s cost advantage over its free-spending neighbors has vanished: it is now among the nation’s most heavily taxed places. And despite the extra levies, new governor Jon Corzine faces a $4.5 billion deficit and a stagnant economy during a national boom. "

I fail to understand why not a single survey or editorial can manage to make the link between the philosophies that have been driving our taxes up, and those same values that trample our liberties in favor of big-government bureaucracy and spending.

I wish one of these reporters would have the courage to speak up.

http://www.nj1015.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=8261&z=1

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_new_jersey.html

http://www.nj1015.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=8264&z=3

What amazes me, however, is that the citizens who rail against this public policy will relocate to another state and begin voting again for the same liberal Democrats whose philosophy is to tax-and-spend, as though the wolves in another state consume different fodder than they do in New Jersey.

Stay tuned, folks, and remember to vote this November.